Go into advertising
I read this post on Gawker today and had to respond. The headline reads, “Do not go into advertising” and what follows is a non-sensical rant about how horrible it is to work on Madison Ave. Now, I have no idea who the author is, or if he’s ever worked in our business, but I can safely say that he is completely and utterly full of shit.
His words read like a dumbed-down retread of Banksy’s self-serving whine-fest about the ad business.
And like Banksy, he is wrong on virtually every point he tries to make.
First, he claims that people who work in advertising failed in a quest to be a part of ‘actual’ creative industries. Actually, most of us wanted to get into this business. We held no illusions that we would be creating art, but we did realize that using our creativity to solve problems for a living is not a bad way to make a few bucks.
Plus, the idea that advertising is not 'really’ creative belies the facts. You try taking a client brief that says “Our bank offers checking services” and turning it into 30 seconds that entertains and informs. It ain’t easy.
The notion that advertising is easy to break into is also a load of crap. I don’t know anyone who didn’t scratch and claw their way into this business. Was it as hard as becoming a rock star? Obviously not. But most of us never believed we’d become rock stars. And we’re okay with that.
We’re also okay with “selling our creativity to corporations”. Guess what? That’s called a job. We use our skills for the benefit of a larger organization in return for a reasonable fee.
What we’re not okay with is doing something that doesn’t motivate us to get out of bed each morning. We don’t feel like we sacrificed something by getting into advertising. We feel like we achieved something. We’ve found a career that allows us to flex our creative muscles and put food on the table. We get to spend our days with interesting people. And we occasionally get to see the fruits of our labor on TV or on a billboard or online. It’s pretty cool.
The author’s belief that we have a finite amount of creativity and cannot create beyond what we’ve 'sold’ to the machine is just absurd. I know plenty of coworkers who write books, play in a band, paint, sculpt or whatever creative pursuit floats their boat.
Sorry, Mr. advertising hater, but our industry isn’t going anywhere. In fact, I’d argue that we are in the middle of our industry’s finest hour. We’re expanding our reach into all kinds of new media. We’re solving problems that Don Draper could never have imagined. And with the world changing so fast, we’re faced with new challenges every day.
Go into advertising. It’s an pretty great way to make a living. For most of us, at least.